The Land of the Free?

The New York Times published an article today titled "Bailout Helps Fuel a New Era of Wall Street Wealth." It was with astonishment that I read a phrase there: "It may come as a surprise that one of the most powerful forces driving the resurgence on Wall Street is not the banks but Washington. " SURPRISE? It may come as a SURPRISE? If this is true, I am afraid I have underestimated the gullibility and lack of sophistication in my fellow Americans. And that is shocking in and of itself.

This is what the government has been doing for the past year, hasn't it? I mean, saving Wall Street. So why would it come as a surprise that the source of new wealth on Wall Street was actually Washington? Beats me!

Here is what may come as a surprise to you, though. We learned a few days ago that our senior citizens won't get a Social Security payment increase next year due to lack of money in the budget. Let us do simple math here. AIG alone was given $182.5 billion in bailout money. Now, there are 35,241,000 seniors aged 65 and older who receive only Social Security from the government. If we had let the crooks at AIG fail, how much money could we then have given to our seniors instead? It turns out the amount which EVERY senior citizen could have received would be $5,178.63. Considering that an average monthly Social Security benefit is $1,061.50, this means that EVERY SENIOR CITIZEN in this country could have received an additional $100 a month for 4 straight years (roughly, a 10% raise compared to the current level) if the money we doled out to the fat cats at AIG ONLY were instead given to the country's elderly.

What does that tell you about our priorities and our morals? And the fact that there are no protests... What does that tell you about our sense of freedom? Nowhere in Europe a trick like that would have worked. People would have been out in the streets protesting. They would have paralyzed their countries with strikes, they would have forced the government to stop saving their own kin at the expense of the most vulnerable citizens. But not in America. As long as we have our "American Idol" and a hamburger, we don't care. Land of the Free? Don't make me laugh!